How To Improve SEO

3 Tips for Improving SEO

Without taking search engine optimization (SEO) into consideration you might be writing and posting great work, but will it be found?

You’ve spent countless hours writing an awesome blog or webpage and when it launches you feel like it will do great.

But launch day comes and it doesn’t do as well as you thought it would.

Why?

Did you remember to optimize your content?

If you don’t optimize your content for SEO all your great work might get lost in the depths of Google.

So how can you stop this problem from happening to you?

Follow these 3 easy steps to make sure your content ranks well.

3 Ways To Improve SEO

Optimize Keywords

When people go to search for something in Google, they use very specific search terms. If you aren’t putting your work where people are looking, you’re missing out.

Before you write a blog post or a webpage, do some research. See what keywords are appropriate for your work. I recommend using Ubersuggest for this research.

Select a keyword that gets enough searches that it is worth your time to use. But you also don’t want to pick one so popular that you get lost in the search.

For example, let’s say you own a gym. Using “gym” as a keyword isn’t going to help you much because it is heavily used. Get a little more specific and use something like “Gym in Colorado”. Using your location is a great way to narrow in on your keywords.

If the one you want to use isn’t going to work well, see if you can find a slight variation of it that could do better. Going back to “Gym in Colorado”, maybe that one is still too popular as well. Try tweaking it to be “Best gym in Colorado.”

Put the keyword or phrase in the content toward the beginning of the page so Google can easily recognize what the page is about. having the keywords in the beginning also reminds people what exactly they are reading about.

When you optimize your content with keywords you will naturally rank towards the top on Google. Being at the top of someone’s search results gives you an automatic level up against someone who isn’t there.

No one wants to take forever looking through all the different pages of Google. So make sure your site is ranking well for SEO and people will have no problem finding you.

2. Improve Metadata

Google Metadata, such as descriptions and title tags, help with rankings. Not having these pieces of information hurts your rankings and keeps you at the bottom of Google.

The title tag is what shows up as the title when something is searched. This can be the title of an article you have written or you can change it to be shorter. The title tag in the picture below is 17 Blogging Mistakes to avoid in 2020.

Screen+Shot+2020-08-19+at+2.37.01+PM-960w (1)

Try to include a title tag modifier. This is a word, usually an adjective, that further describes the title tag. In the example above 2020 is the title tag modifier.

Including the current year is a great way to assure people your info is as up to date as possible.

The main places you want to make sure you get are the meta description and title tags. Both of these can benefit from having keywords placed in them.

The meta description is the short description of a page you find when you look something up. Looking at the image below, the text in the black box is the meta description.

Having a meta description lets people know exactly what to expect on your page.

Google bolds keywords that people search for in the search results. Make sure you include your keyword in the description at least once so it’s visible to searchers that your page has what they’re looking for.

Writing meta descriptions and title tags is an easy way to increase your ranking on search engines.

3. Increase Backlinking

Anyone can put almost anything they want out on the internet, right? So how does Google know if your blog or work is posting trustworthy or accurate information?

They look for links from other websites that point to yours. This is a sign that those other websites trust you. This gives Google more confidence that your page is trustworthy.

This process is where Company A writes a blog post and includes a link to Company B’s website or blog post it is referencing. Here is an example of backlinking on a ClearBrand blog post.

This is how Google knows you are a credible site that people can trust. Think of it as Google’s version of word of mouth. When we hear about a business from a friend we trust it more when Google sees a link pointing from one site to another they trust it more.

Reach out to people who have compatible content to yours and see if they are willing to post a link of yours in something they write. You can offer to include links of theirs in your work, too.

This is a great way to quickly build backlinks and increase the number of people who know about you and your products. While also showing Google that you’re trustworthy.

When your website is credible in the eyes of Google it makes it easier to rank well. You start popping up toward the top of searches and become more visible.